THE CO Derry couple whose children were taken into care in Portugal have denied they drank excessively or were incapable of being responsible parents.
Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin, from Upperlands near Maghera, issued a lengthy statement yesterday.
The McGuckin children, aged six, two and one, were taken into care last weekend in the Algarve after their parents allegedly became so drunk they were incapable of looking after them.
However, the McGuckins said the amount of alcohol they drank was not sufficient to render them incapable of being responsible parents.
The couple said yesterday they had taken their children to play before going for a meal, when they took their first drink of the day. They returned to their hotel at 10pm.
The statement said: “Antoinette became violently ill on arrival at the foyer of the hotel and required assistance from the management.
“Eamon arranged with the hotel management to care for the children whilst he would accompany Antoinette to the hospital. Hotel management agreed to this until the parents returned. The parents left with the paramedics in the belief that once Antoinette’s condition was established and treated they would return to the hotel to their children.”
The detailed statement said official reports from the health centre confirm their claims that they were neither drunk nor incapable.
In the statement, the family said that once they were reunited they spent time at the poolside at their hotel and afterwards at the local beach.
It was only after this, they said, that members of the media began arriving at the hotel.
Referring to the storm of publicity, the couple said there were “deeply saddened and hurt by the events of the past days. We live and breathe for our children and would never ever place them in any kind of danger.
“We hope that this traumatic experience is now closed as we want to get back to our normal routine of loving our beautiful children and getting on with life. We will not be participating in interviews and would therefore appreciate that we are left in peace with no further media coverage.”